Right now it's a tribal region without a constitution, and no more advanced as a nation than tribes in Oman or the outer deserts of the UAE.

Avraham Burg's new book is fabulous! Coming from someone so high up in the Zionist pantheon makes it doubly exciting to read.

The first one proposes that what is best for Israel is the unconditional support of that state by the Yoo Ess of Ey, up to and including the sponsorship of the (international law says so) illegal settlements.

The second one proposes that actually, what is best for Israel is for the Yoo Ess of Ey to tell that state that perhaps the settlements are a bad idea, and to smooth out the rough edges here are a few extra billions for yah…

Both viewpoints argue from the standpoint of "What is best for Israel?".

I don't see a third view point anywhere – the simple one.

WHAT IS BEST FOR THE UNITED STATES?

What a pathetic country this is.

How nice to even raise the question.

Thanks, Phil.

No thanks at ALL to Witty & SOG, who view all as are you against Israel uber alles, or not?

It is the reluctance of most people in the foreign policy mainstream, and in the media, to say what they really think that is the chief barrier to hope. Have we not the courage to speak our minds? Are we here afraid to follow the truth? With Walt & Mearsheimer showing us the way, all we have to do is speak truthfully about our reactions to what they say. Damn the torpedoes! Let's have an open debate.

If this was their primary thesis and title, they wouldn't have been ridiculed so.

Ridicule isn't an appropriate response to serious thought. It has no place in serious debate, except as a concession that one has nothing to say on the merits. Let's all start calling out the name-callers and ridiculers as just having nothing intelligent to say.

"Americans do not yet perceive a cost to having a freewheeling foreign policy. We stayed in the Persian Gulf for ten years, and lost fewer than three hundred people. We knocked off the Taliban in a few weeks. But imagine going into Iraq. If things go badly, we end up there for a long time. There's a point where the costs start adding up. It will generate higher and higher levels of resentment. Empires start generating a lot of resentment. I'd leave Saddam right where he is. Keep him bottled up. Wait for him to die. What do we do if we're successful? How many coups were there in Iraq between 1958 and 1968? It's a country riven with internal divisions. That's why the Bush people didn't go to Baghdad in 1991. Iran is much more powerful and important than Iraq—how do Iranians react? I have limited confidence in our ability to run countries we don't understand. Why, in the middle of pursuing Al Qaeda, would you decide, 'Oh, let's take a big country and invade it and create a giant political mess there!' We've seen people attempting this in the Middle East before, and it hasn't worked. You never know how these operations will go. History is not on the side of the advocates here."

This man is now locked out of the NYTimes while William Kristol gets a weekly column.

This guy should be living in one of the settler camps on Palestine land.

I bet he loves to manipulate American boy scouts, so they can die
for his children. He especially loves the goys reared in trailer camps,

even more than Jerry Springer.

He gets to wave the flag of righteousness, not merely that of circus.

For what its worth, if the book alone had been published first (far more balanced, clear, and less rhetorical than the article), the sales would have been far less, but the authors would have been criticized far less.